ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011.

OR

o

TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from ______ to ______.

Commission file number 001-34143

RACKSPACE HOSTING, INC.

(Exact Name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware

74-3016523

(State or other jurisdiction of

incorporation or organization)

(IRS Employer

Identification No.)

5000 Walzem Rd.

San Antonio, Texas 78218

(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)

(210) 312-4000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of each class

Name of each exchange of which registered

Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share

New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

(Title of Class)

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes o No R

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No R

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes R No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes R No o

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of the registrant's knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See definition of “large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer" and "smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Large accelerated filer R

Accelerated filer o

Non-accelerated filer o

Smaller reporting company o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes o No R

As of June 30, 2011, the aggregate market value of shares held by non-affiliates of the registrant (based upon the closing sale price of such shares on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2011) was $3,274,366,449.

On February 14, 2012, 131,960,849 shares of the registrant’s Common Stock, $0.001 par value, were outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the Proxy Statement for the Registrant's 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed within 120 days of the Registrant's fiscal year ended December 31, 2011 are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Form 10-K.

We have made forward-looking statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are subject to the “safe harbor” created by those sections. The forward-looking statements in this report are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “anticipates,” “aspires,” “believes,” “can,” “continue,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “projects,” “seeks,” “should,” “will” or “would” or the negative of these terms and similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause our actual results, performance, time frames or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, time frames or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We discuss many of these risks, uncertainties and other factors in this document in greater detail under the heading “Risk Factors.” We believe it is important to communicate our expectations to our investors. However, there may be events in the future that we are not able to predict accurately or over which we have no control. The risks described in “Risk Factors” included in this report, as well as any other cautionary language in this report, provide examples of risks, uncertainties and events that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations we describe in our forward-looking statements. You should be aware that the occurrence of the events described in “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this report could harm our business.

Given these risks, uncertainties and other factors, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Also, these forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this filing. You should read this document completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We hereby qualify our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

TRADEMARKS AND SERVICE MARKS

Rackspace® and Fanatical Support® are our registered service marks. Net Promoter® is a registered trademark of Bain & Company, Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.; NPS is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc. EVA® is a registered trademark of Stern Stewart & Co. and EVAdimensions. Other trademarks and tradenames appearing in this report are the property of their respective holders. We do not intend our use or display of other companies’ tradenames, trademarks, or service marks to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, these other companies.

References to “we,” “our,” “our company,” “us,” “the company,” “Rackspace Hosting,” or “Rackspace” refer to Rackspace Hosting, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the Consolidated Financial Statements and the related Notes for additional information regarding the business and our operating results.

Overview

Rackspace is the service leader in cloud computing, an industry best described as delivering computing, storage, and applications as a service over the Internet. We and other cloud computing companies free our business customers from much of the expense and hassle of owning and managing their own computer hardware and software. What distinguishes Rackspace from its competitors is our unique blend of user-friendly technology and high-touch human support, which makes cloud computing simple for businesses of all sizes. Our rapid growth over the last 13 years has been fueled by our commitment to provide customers with a unique customer experience known as Fanatical Support®.

We were incorporated in Delaware on March 7, 2000 under the name Rackspace.com, Inc., but our operations began in 1998 as a limited partnership, which became our subsidiary through a corporate reorganization completed on August 21, 2001. Our principal executive offices are located at 5000 Walzem Rd., San Antonio, Texas 78218. Our telephone number is (210) 312-4000. Our website address is www.rackspace.com.

Our mission is to be recognized as one of the world’s great service companies.

Our Industry

The cloud computing industry is a fast-growing and crowded industry, and Rackspace has earned a well-defined leadership role within it. We are a cloud computing specialist and the industry's service leader. Our employees, who are called Rackers, are focused on providing cloud computing services for our business customers.

Unlike some of our rivals who essentially rent access to computer hardware and software, Rackspace specializes in offering a set of support and managed services on top of raw computing services. Our approach positions Rackspace as a mission-critical extension of our business customers' IT departments.

Today, there are three ways that businesses can fulfill their IT requirements:

1.

The first approach is commonly referred to as “do it yourself,” or DIY. This is the legacy approach to managing IT services, in which a business retains complete ownership and responsibility for ongoing maintenance and management of servers, software, networking equipment, IT staff, etc. Companies may choose to house this equipment in their own data centers or server closets, or may rent data center space from a colocation provider.

2.

The second approach is outsourcing, where businesses transfer full responsibility for their IT systems, operations, and employees to a third party.

3.

The third approach is cloud computing, which is the delivery of IT services on demand, usually over the Internet.

We believe that cloud computing delivers better quality and a more cost-competitive solution than do the outsourcing approach or the do-it-yourself approach. We believe demand for cloud computing will continue to grow for four reasons:

1.

Lack of In-House IT Expertise and Equipment. Most smaller companies do not have the IT staff needed to manage complicated, mission-critical websites or other IT applications, and they do not want to purchase expensive hardware with their available capital. Yet they must have an increasingly robust, reliable online presence in order to succeed in today’s market.

2.

Strategic Resource Utilization. Larger companies that do have specialized, dedicated IT resources would rather deploy these resources to more strategic areas of their business rather than managing servers or running a website.

Market Acceptance. As companies have experienced the benefits of using cloud computing providers to manage some of their IT workloads, they have become more comfortable having those providers manage additional IT services. As time goes by, they will move more and more of their IT workloads to the Cloud.

4.

Accelerated Business Creation. Cloud computing removes many of the traditional barriers to new business formation, through its low cost, its high speed and nimbleness, and the way it lowers upfront capital requirements. Cloud computing is driving innovation and new business formation at a rapid rate, in much the way that the iPhone has driven a fast-growing market for applications. The rising supply of cloud computing is, to a large extent, creating new demand.

Cloud computing is at the center of a multi-year shift that is changing the way businesses buy computing power and IT services. New virtualization technologies, which deliver greater agility and cost savings to businesses, make cloud computing even more compelling for a broader market.

Our Business

We are a global company. Our corporate headquarters is located in San Antonio, with operations located in eight other cities in the United States, along with London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and Sydney. Our services are sold to businesses in more than 120 countries. In 2011 we had net revenue of $1,025.1 million, and as of December 31, 2011, we served more than 172,000 business customers, and we managed more than 79,000 servers and 2,700,000 email accounts. No single customer accounted for more than 2% of our net revenue in any of the past three years.

We began our business by providing customers with dedicated hosting services in which our customers were provided access to an entire server that was not shared with anyone. As technology advanced, we were also able to offer hosting and other services that utilized pooled infrastructure in order to more efficiently utilize our infrastructure while providing customers with benefits such as more flexibility in accessing their computing needs and lower pricing points than dedicated hosting provides. We have historically referred to the pooled infrastructure service offering as our “Cloud” business and the dedicated hosting services as “Managed Hosting.” However, the meaning of the terms “cloud” and “cloud computing” have evolved to the point where they are now thought to mean the delivery of both pooled and dedicated computing as a service, over a network (typically the Internet). Because all of our services fit under this new definition, we have decided that our nomenclature for our services should change to be more effectively described and understood. Therefore, we intend to refer to the former Cloud services as “Public Cloud” hosting and our Managed Hosting services as “Dedicated Cloud" hosting. "Managed" will refer to a service level available to all customers, whether they are using Public Cloud or Dedicated Cloud resources.

We are focused on the segment of the cloud computing market that demands, and is willing to pay for, strong support and management services on top of raw computing services. Our services are productized and repeatable, which enables us to operate IT systems for our customers with high levels of up-time, rapid deployment of new systems and significant cost savings, which in turn allows our customers' IT departments to focus on their core business. Our service offering combines hosting on dedicated hardware and on multi-tenant pools of virtualized hardware in a way that best suits each customer’s requirements. We have adopted a portfolio approach to our services, which allows customers the flexibility to choose the best combination of support level, Dedicated Cloud hosting and Public Cloud hosting to meet their unique IT needs. The major components of our products and services are described in greater detail below:

Our Service

Customer Experience. This is where we differentiate. Fanatical Support, our unique brand of customer experience, is backed by a complex business process that we have built and refined over the past 13 years, and it distinguishes our company in the market. We incorporate Fanatical Support into all aspects of our hosting services. Fanatical Support is designed to generate an extraordinary customer experience. It involves everything from the way we recruit, interview and test prospective employees; to the way we continuously train new and veteran Rackers alike; to the way we make expert U.S. and U.K. based technicians available to customers 24/7 by phone or email or chat; to the way we empower those Rackers to spend time and money on customers without asking permission; to the way we measure customer satisfaction and churn on a daily basis, team by team; to the way we incentivize our teams and managers; to the way we design and implement hardware and software solutions and processes to make our services highly reliable and easy for the customer to use and navigate.

When we first launched Fanatical Support®, it was mainly about answering the phone and providing extraordinary support when things went wrong with a customer's computing. Since then, our conception of Fanatical Support® has expanded to include technological improvements that make our services more reliable and easier to use, in line with our company's purpose statement: to make cloud computing simple for business.

We have built our business around an understanding that things go wrong in computing and always will in a field so complex and fast-changing. We believe that many business customers want a trusted partner who is available 24/7 to help them safely and reliably take advantage of the enhanced capabilities and cost savings available through cloud computing.

Our Product Categories

Everything that we do at Rackspace falls under the umbrella of cloud computing, defined as the delivery of computing, storage, and applications over the Internet. All of our computer hardware is located in our secure, business-class data centers in the U.S., the U.K. and Hong Kong. Our services are defined by particular form factors, as follows:

Dedicated Cloud, sometimes known as "managed hosting," refers to IT services that we provide on a server or servers reserved for a specific customer. Our customers have full administrator privileges and are responsible for most administrative functions. We provide a customer management portal and other management tools. This service frees the customer from the burden of managing the data center, network, hardware devices, and operating system software. Dedicated Cloud hosting is largely a recurring, subscription-based business and is a core service offering of Rackspace. Included in Dedicated Cloud hosting is private cloud, which refers to a pool of computing resources that is virtualized for greater efficiency and nimbleness, but that is dedicated to one particular customer, rather than being used by multiple customers. This approach is especially popular with some of our larger corporate customers.

Public Cloud refers to pooled computing resources delivered on-demand over the Internet. Virtualization and other cloud technologies allow us to effectively provision and manage a pool of computing resources across a larger base of customers and deliver more computing resources to businesses when they need them. At the same time, pooled cloud computing substantially lowers the cost of IT services. There are multiple varieties of pooled cloud hosting services that are priced on a pay-per-use basis and that can be quickly and easily scaled up or down on-demand. Today we offer Cloud Servers for computing, Cloud Files for storage, and Cloud Applications, which includes email, collaboration and file back-ups. Public Cloud services are emerging technologies and are core elements of our service offering.

Our Integrated Approach

Hybrid Hosting - we are pioneering this emerging category, which allows a customer to easily and seamlessly utilize the benefits of both Dedicated Cloud hosting and Public Cloud hosting. A customer is able to use any combination of dedicated and pooled resources and to manage them seamlessly through our RackConnect service. Each form factor has specific and unique customer benefits, and through Hybrid Hosting the two can be combined and adjusted to address each customer's changing and diverse needs. Furthermore, Rackspace’s set of managed support services and Fanatical Support are critical in this new world of computing as customers increasingly need help to make the transition and utilize these new services.

Competition

Given the significant market potential of cloud computing, we operate in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive environment.

Our principal areas of competition include:

Do-it-Yourself Solutions. Businesses may choose to house and maintain their own IT systems or use a colocation provider to house IT hardware and provide connectivity. Companies that provide colocation services include AT&T, Equinix, CenturyLink, and other telecommunications companies. We believe that over time it will be difficult for the vast majority of businesses to replicate the capabilities and low costs of specialized service providers, making the do-it-yourself option less attractive.

IT Outsourcing Providers. Businesses may choose to outsource their entire IT systems and staff to a provider such as CSC, HP or IBM. Outsourcing has long been an option for only the largest companies because of the cost, complexity and duration of outsourcing contracts. Rarely is this a viable option for small and medium-sized businesses with rapidly changing needs. Even some large corporations are questioning the cost-benefit ratio and the slow response times associated with the outsourcing approach.

Cloud Computing Providers. Businesses may choose to use a cloud computing provider other than Rackspace to provide services and support for their IT systems. Competitors include AT&T, British Telecom, CenturyLink, Softlayer, Verizon and others. We also face competition from large, diversified technology companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM and Dell, who are making substantial investments in cloud computing.

Our Approach and Sources of Competitive Advantage

We are focused on creating sustainable competitive advantage in four key areas. First, our vision is to be recognized as one of the world’s great service companies. Because companies must trust their cloud computing provider with their mission-critical IT assets, service reputation is a key selection criterion. Second, our singular focus is to provide cloud computing services, which enables us to operate with a financial discipline that keeps costs low, thereby generating returns that exceed our cost of capital. Third, our portfolio approach to services allows customers to select the solution that best fits their requirements. Fourth, we are committed to open technology standards, which address one of the main barriers to adoption of cloud computing: the customer's fear of being locked in to a particular vendor who then wields great power to raise prices and stifle innovation. These key principles form the foundation of our business model, which is described in more detail below.

Fanatical Support - We believe that excellent customer service creates customer loyalty, which in turn leads to higher profits and growth. We call our unique, industry-leading customer service model “Fanatical Support.” Our entire company is focused on going above and beyond expectations to delight the customer. Fanatical Support builds customer loyalty, which in turn delivers three key benefits:

•

Loyal customers buy more, both as they grow and as they hand a larger proportion of their total IT workload over to us.

•

Loyal customers stay with us longer and refer other customers to us. Both factors help reduce customer acquisition costs and other sales and marketing costs.

•

Loyal customers can be served more cost effectively. The average cost of serving a customer is reduced after initial provisioning and our ability to provide additional service levels that are not capital intensive both lead to higher average profits and profit margins over time.

As a measure of customer loyalty, we make extensive use of the Net Promoter Score® (NPS), developed by Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc. to track the likelihood that customers will refer us to friends or colleagues. Surveys are conducted on an ongoing basis, and broken down by support team, with results summarized monthly and analyzed to determine areas for improvement. We work with our customers to understand what they consider “must haves” and what they would like to see in terms of incremental improvements to our service offerings.

Fanatical Support is a result of our unique culture. Employees are called Rackers and are rewarded for going above and beyond to serve customers. The highest form of recognition is the Straightjacket Award, which is given to the employee who best demonstrates Fanatical Support in action. We are also very selective in our hiring process. Our philosophy is that technical and functional skills can be taught, but attitude and temperament are ingrained. We strive to hire employees with the personality traits that fit well within our culture and our teams. Periodically, we conduct employee engagement surveys as a measure of cultural health and reward those managers who create an engaging and high-performance environment. For the last two years, Fortune magazine has ranked us in its list of “100 Best Companies to Work For.” We firmly believe that our unique culture is a point of sustained differentiation because our corporate culture, and the complex business process that sustains it, cannot be easily or quickly replicated by competitors.

Singular Focus - We specialize exclusively in providing computing power over the Internet using dedicated and pooled technologies. Modern computing infrastructure is complex and ever-changing, so this specialist focus has allowed us to build a productized set of services that are repeatable, efficient, high-quality and valuable to customers. Our employees, systems, management practices and organizational processes are constantly tuned to improve our high-volume cloud computing offerings. Many of our competitors have to balance their cloud computing lines of business with other areas of focus. These other products and services vie internally for the resources and talent needed to make cloud computing successful. Our exclusive focus on cloud computing enables us to concentrate our capital and our Rackers' talents on a single mission and purpose. We can more rapidly and accurately deploy, upgrade and scale our systems and services. This focus has generated industry-leading revenue growth, profitability and customer satisfaction.

Seamless Portfolio - Many hosting providers offer a limited set of services or rely on third-party reselling relationships to complete their hosting portfolio. Our portfolio of services allows us to deliver the right offering at the right budget for the customer. Because of the breadth of our portfolio, customers can host their entire environment with us, allowing them to benefit from the simplicity of working with one hosting specialist, rather than managing multiple providers. Our Hybrid Hosting approach allows customers the flexibility to combine both traditional and emerging services for a solution that best addresses their unique IT requirements, and our RackConnect product allows the customer to employ all of our services in a seamless, easy-to-use manner.

Open Standards at Cloud Scale - When we partnered with NASA in July 2010 to launch OpenStack, an open-source cloud computing platform, our goal was to provide an alternative to the proprietary software that then powered all of the major cloud-computing environments. We wanted to help overcome one of the major barriers to adoption of cloud computing: business customers' fear of vendor lock-in and rising prices. Over the past year, OpenStack has attracted significant support, with the addition of approximately 100 new companies, two successful Design Summits with participants from six continents, and the successful release of two new versions of the software.

Research and Development

For the years ended December 31, 2009, 2010 and 2011, we recognized $12.6 million, $18.8 million and $25.0 million of research and development expense, respectively. Our research and development efforts are focused on developing new services including:

•

Deployment of new technologies to address emerging trends, such as Public Cloud, private cloud and OpenStack;

•

Development and enhancement of proprietary tools;

•

Development and enhancement of processes for sales and support; and

•

Development and enhancement of data center operations.

We believe cloud computing is a paradigm shift in IT, and we are investing heavily to take advantage of these new technologies. In addition to the research and development expenses incurred, we have capitalized internal software development and other project costs in the amount of $25.0 million, $32.3 million and $63.1 million in the years ended December 31, 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively.

Intellectual Property Rights

We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark, service mark and trade secret laws in the U.S., the European Union, and various countries in Asia, South America, and elsewhere and contractual restrictions to establish and protect certain proprietary rights in our data, applications, and services. We have rights to patents on a wide range of technologies, and we have patents pending. We have trademarks registered or pending in the U.S., the European Union, and various countries in Asia, South America, and elsewhere for our name and certain words and phrases that we use in our business. We rely on copyright laws and licenses to use and protect software and certain other elements of our proprietary technologies. We also enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants and confidentiality agreements with other third parties, and we actively monitor access to our proprietary technologies.

In addition, we license third-party software, open source software and other technologies that are used in the provision of or incorporated into some elements of our services.

Employees

As of December 31, 2011, we employed 4,040 Rackers, a net increase of 778, or 23.9%, compared to December 31, 2010. None of our employees are represented by a collective bargaining agreement, nor have we experienced any work stoppages. We believe that our relations with our employees are good.

Our support teams are specifically structured based on our customer’s product and service choices. Service teams are comprised of personnel that can address a wide range of business and technical issues for a customer and are available 24/7/365.

Financial Information About Geographic Areas

See Item 8 of Part II, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data – Note 16 – Segment Information” for financial information related to our geographic areas. For information regarding certain risks relating to our foreign operations, please see the risk titled, “Our ability to operate and expand our business is susceptible to risks associated with international sales and operations” in Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”

Available Information

We file annual, quarterly, and special reports, proxy statements and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). You may read and copy any materials that we have filed with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. Please call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for further information on the public reference room. Our SEC filings are also available to the public at the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov. In addition, we make available free of charge on or through our Internet website, http://www.rackspace.com under “Investors,” all of the annual, quarterly and special reports, proxy statements, Section 16 insider reports on Form 3, Form 4 and Form 5 and amendments to these reports and other information we file with the SEC. Additionally, our board committee charters and code of ethics are available on our website and in print to any stockholder who requests them. The information contained on our website is not incorporated herein by reference and does not comprise a part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Our physical infrastructure is concentrated in a few facilities, and any failure in our physical infrastructure or services could lead to significant costs and disruptions and could reduce our revenue, harm our business reputation and have a material adverse effect on our financial results.

Our network, power supplies and data centers are subject to various points of failure. Problems with our cooling equipment, generators, uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, routers, switches, or other equipment, whether or not within our control, could result in service interruptions for our customers as well as equipment damage. Because our hosting services do not require geographic proximity of our data centers to our customers, our infrastructure is consolidated into a few large facilities. While data backup services and disaster recovery services are available as a part of our hosting services offerings, the majority of our customers do not elect to pay the additional fees required to have disaster recovery services store their backup data offsite in a separate facility, which could substantially mitigate the adverse effect to a customer from a single data center failure. Accordingly, any failure or downtime in one of our data center facilities could affect a significant percentage of our customers. The total destruction or severe impairment of any of our data center facilities could result in significant downtime of our services and the loss of customer data. Since our ability to attract and retain customers depends on our ability to provide customers with highly reliable service, even minor interruptions in our service could harm our reputation. The services we provide are subject to failure resulting from numerous factors, including:

▪

Power loss;

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Equipment failure;

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Human error or accidents;

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Sabotage and vandalism;

▪

Failure by us or our vendors to provide adequate service or maintenance to our equipment;

▪

Network connectivity downtime;

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Improper building maintenance by the landlords of the buildings in which our facilities are located;

Additionally, in connection with the expansion or consolidation of our existing data center facilities from time to time, there is an increased risk that service interruptions may occur as a result of server relocation or other unforeseen construction-related issues.

We have experienced interruptions in service in the past due to such things as power outages, power equipment failures, cooling equipment failures, routing problems, hard drive failures, database corruption, system failures, software failures, and other computer failures. While we have not experienced a material increase in customer attrition following these events, the extent to which our reputation suffers is difficult to assess. We have taken and continue to take steps to improve our infrastructure to prevent service interruptions, including upgrading our electrical and mechanical infrastructure. However, service interruptions continue to be a significant risk for us and could materially impact our business.

Cause existing customers to cancel or elect to not review their contracts; or

▪

Make it more difficult for us to attract new customers.

Any of these events could materially increase our expenses or reduce our revenue, which would have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

If we are unable to adapt to evolving technologies and customer demands in a timely and cost-effective manner, our ability to sustain and grow our business may suffer.

Our market is characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards, and frequent new product announcements, all of which impact the way hosting services are marketed and delivered. The adoption of new technologies, a change in industry standards or introduction of more attractive products or services could make some or all of our offerings less desirable or even obsolete. These potential changes are magnified by the continued rapid growth of the Internet and the intense competition in our industry. To be successful, we must adapt to our rapidly changing market by continually improving the performance, features, and reliability of our services and modifying our business strategies accordingly. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to identify the emergence of all of these new service alternatives successfully, modify our services accordingly, or develop and bring new products and services to market in a timely and cost-effective manner to address these changes. Our failure to provide products and services to compete with new technologies or the obsolescence of our services would likely lead us to lose current and potential customers or cause us to incur substantial costs by attempting to catch our offerings up to the changed environment.

We could also incur substantial costs if we need to modify our services or infrastructure in order to adapt to these changes. For example, our data center infrastructure could require improvements due to (i) the development of new systems to deliver power to or eliminate heat from the servers we house, (ii) the development of new server technologies that require levels of critical load and heat removal that our facilities are not designed to provide, or (iii) a fundamental change in the way in which we deliver services. We may not be able to timely adapt to changing technologies, if at all. Our ability to sustain and grow our business would suffer if we fail to respond to these changes in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Our ability to introduce new products into the market in a timely manner is reliant on how well we can forecast customer demands, develop new products and services and bring the services and products to market. In addition, our ability to develop new products and services is reliant on how accurately we can balance our need to replace our older legacy systems in order to provide scalability with our continued utilization of available resources. If we continue to push our older systems beyond their functional limits, those systems could fail. Such failure could cause us to breach our service level obligations, take resources form ongoing projects to supplement for the non-functionality and distract our management. Alternatively, trying to replace legacy systems on too large of a scale and too quickly could result in material disruption in normal business operations.

Finally, even if we succeed in adapting to a new technology or the changing industry standard and developing attractive products and services and successfully bringing them to market, there is no assurance that our use of the new technology or standard or our introduction of the new products or services would have a positive impact on our financial performance and could even result in lower revenue, lower margins and/or higher costs and therefore could negatively impact our financial performance.

We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors.

The market for cloud computing is highly competitive. We expect to face intense competition from our existing competitors as well as additional competition from new market entrants in the future as the actual and potential market for hosting and cloud computing continues to grow.

Our current and potential competitors vary by size, service offerings and geographic region. These competitors may elect to partner with each other or with focused companies like us to grow their businesses. They include:

▪

Do-it-yourself solutions with a colocation partner such as AT&T, Equinix, CenturyLink and other telecommunications companies;

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IT outsourcing providers such as CSC, HP, and IBM;

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Hosting providers such as AT&T, British Telecom, CenturyLink, Softlayer, Verio and other telecommunications companies; and

Many of our current and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and marketing resources, larger customer bases, longer operating histories, greater brand recognition, and more established relationships in the industry than we do. As a result, some of these competitors may be able to:

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Develop superior products or services, gain greater market acceptance, and expand their service offerings more efficiently or more rapidly;

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Adapt to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer requirements more quickly;

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Bundle hosting services with other services they provide at reduced prices;

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Take advantage of acquisition and other opportunities more readily;

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Adopt more aggressive pricing policies and devote greater resources to the promotion, marketing, and sales of their services; and

▪

Devote greater resources to the research and development of their products and services.

If we do not prevent security breaches and other interruptions to our infrastructure, we may be exposed to lawsuits, lose customers, suffer harm to our reputation, and incur additional costs.

The services we offer involve the transmission of large amounts of sensitive and proprietary information over public communications networks, as well as the processing and storage of confidential customer information. Unauthorized access, remnant data exposure, computer viruses, denial of service attacks, accidents, employee error or malfeasance, intentional misconduct by computer “hackers,” and other disruptions can occur, and infrastructure gaps, hardware and software vulnerabilities, inadequate or missing security controls and exposed or unprotected customer data can exist that (i) interfere with the delivery of services to our customers, (ii) impede our customers' ability to do business, or (iii) compromise the security of systems and data, which exposes information to unauthorized third parties.

Techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, or to sabotage, systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target. We may be unable to implement security measures in a timely manner, or, if and when implemented, these measures could be circumvented as a result of accidental or intentional actions by parties within or outside of our organization. Any breaches that occur could expose us to increased risk of lawsuits, loss of existing or potential customers, harm to our reputation and increases in our security costs. Although we typically require our customers to sign agreements that contain provisions attempting to limit our liability for security breaches, we cannot assure you that a court would enforce any contractual limitations on our liability in the event that one of our customers brings a lawsuit against us as the result of a security breach that they may ascribe to us. Additionally, we may decide to negotiate settlements with affected customers regardless of such contractual limitations. The outcome of any such lawsuit would depend on the specific facts of the case and legal and policy considerations that we may not be able to mitigate. In such cases, we could be liable for substantial damage awards that may significantly exceed our liability insurance coverage by unknown but significant amounts, which could seriously impair our financial condition. The laws of some states and countries may also require us to inform any person whose data was accessed or stolen, which could harm our reputation and business. Complying with the applicable notice requirements in the event of a security breach could result in significant costs. We may also be subject to investigation and penalties by regulatory authorities and potential claims by persons whose information was disclosed, even if such person was not actually a customer.

If we fail to hire and retain qualified employees and management personnel, our growth strategy and our operating results could be harmed.

Our growth strategy depends on our ability to identify, hire, train, and retain executives, IT professionals, technical engineers, software developers, operations employees, and sales and senior management personnel who maintain relationships with our customers and who can provide the technical, strategic, and marketing skills required for our company to grow. There is a shortage of qualified personnel in these fields, specifically in the San Antonio, Texas area, where we are headquartered and a majority of our employees are located. We compete with other companies for this limited pool of potential employees. In addition, as our industry becomes more competitive, it could become especially difficult to retain personnel with unique in-demand skills and knowledge, who we would expect to become recruiting targets for our competitors. There is no assurance that we will be able to recruit or retain qualified personnel, and this failure could cause a dilution of our service-oriented culture and our inability to develop and deliver new products and services, which could cause our operations and financial results to be negatively impacted.

Our success and future growth also depends to a significant degree on the skills and continued services of our management team, especially Graham Weston, our Chairman; A. Lanham Napier, our Chief Executive Officer; and Lew Moorman, our President. We do not have long-term employment agreements with any members of our management team, including Messrs. Weston, Napier and Moorman. Mr. Napier is the only member of our management team on whom we maintain key man insurance.

Failure to maintain adequate internal systems could cause us to be unable to properly provide service to our customers, causing us to lose customers, suffer harm to our reputation, and incur additional costs.

Some of our enterprise systems have been designed to support individual products, resulting in a fragmentation among various internal systems, making it difficult to serve customers who use multiple services offerings. This causes us to implement manual processes to overcome the fragmentation, which results in increased expense and unnecessary manual errors. Some of these systems are also on aging or undersized infrastructure and are at risk of reaching capacity limits in the near future. If we fail to upgrade, replace or increase capabilities on these systems, we may be unable to meet our customers' requests for certain types of service.

We have systems initiatives underway that span infrastructure, products and business transformation. These initiatives are likely to drive significant change in both infrastructure and business processes and contain overlaps and dependencies among the programs. Our inability to manage competing priorities, execute multiple parallel program tracks, plan effectively, manage resources effectively and meet deadlines and budgets, could result in us not being able to implement the systems needed to deliver our services in a compelling manner to our customers.

We provide service level commitments to our customers, which could require us to issue credits for future services if the stated service levels are not met for a given period and could significantly decrease our revenue and harm our reputation.

Our customer agreements provide that we maintain certain service level commitments to our customers relating primarily to network uptime, critical infrastructure availability, and hardware replacement. If we are unable to meet the stated service level commitments, we may be contractually obligated to provide these customers with credits for future services. As a result, a failure to deliver services for a relatively short duration could cause us to issue these credits to a large number of affected customers. In addition, we cannot be assured that our customers will accept these credits in lieu of other legal remedies that may be available to them. Our failure to meet our commitments could also result in substantial customer dissatisfaction or loss. Because of the loss of future revenue through these credits, potential customer loss and other potential liabilities, our revenue could be significantly impacted if we cannot meet our service level commitments to our customers.

If we are unable to maintain a high level of customer service, customer satisfaction and demand for our services could suffer.

We believe that our success depends on our ability to provide customers with quality service that not only meets our stated commitments, but meets and then exceeds customer service expectations. We refer to this high quality of customer service as Fanatical Support®. If we are unable to provide customers with quality customer support in a variety of areas, we could face customer dissatisfaction, dilution of our brand, weakening of our main market differentiator, decreased overall demand for our services, and loss of revenue. In addition, our inability to meet customer service expectations may damage our reputation and could consequently limit our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers, which would adversely affect our ability to generate revenue and negatively impact our operating results.

Our existing customers could elect to reduce or terminate the services they purchase from us because we do not have long-term contracts with our customers, which could adversely affect our operating results.

Customer contracts for our dedicated cloud hosting services typically have initial terms of one to two years which, unless terminated, may be renewed or automatically extended on a month-to-month basis. Our customers have no obligation to renew their services after their initial contract periods expire on these contracts. In addition, many of our other services and products, including most of our pooled cloud computing products and services, are generally provided on a month-to-month basis and do not have an extended initial term at all. Our costs associated with maintaining revenue from existing customers are generally much lower than costs associated with generating revenue from new customers. Therefore, a reduction in revenue from our existing customers, even if offset by an increase in revenue from new customers, could reduce our operating margins. Any failure by us to continue to retain our existing customers could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

Customers with mission-critical applications could potentially expose us to lawsuits for their lost profits or damages, which could impair our financial condition.

Because our hosting services are critical to many of our customers’ businesses, any significant disruption in our services could result in lost profits or other indirect or consequential damages to our customers. Although we require our customers to sign agreements that contain provisions attempting to limit our liability for service outages, we cannot assure you that a court would enforce any contractual limitations on our liability in the event that one of our customers brings a lawsuit against us as the result of a service interruption or other Internet site or application problems that they may ascribe to us. The outcome of any such lawsuit would depend on the specific facts of the case and any legal and policy considerations that we may not be able to mitigate. In such cases, we could be liable for substantial damage awards that may exceed our liability insurance coverage by unknown but significant amounts, which could materially impair our financial condition.

We have been accused of infringing the proprietary rights of others and may be accused of infringing on the proprietary rights of others in the future, which could subject us to costly and time consuming litigation and require us to discontinue services that infringe the rights of others.

There may be intellectual property rights held by others, including issued or pending patents, trademarks, and service marks that cover significant aspects of our technologies, branding or business methods, including technologies and intellectual property we have licensed from third parties. Companies in the technology industry, and other patent and trademark holders seeking to profit from royalties in connection with grants of licenses, own large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, and trade secrets and frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. These or other parties could claim that we have misappropriated or misused intellectual property rights. Any such current or future intellectual property claim against us, regardless of merit, could be time consuming and expensive to settle or litigate and could divert the attention of our technical and management personnel. An adverse determination also could prevent us from offering our services to our customers and may require that we procure or develop substitute services that do not infringe. For any intellectual property rights claim against us or our customers, we may also have to pay damages, indemnify our customers against damages or stop using technology or intellectual property found to be in violation of a third party’s rights. We may be unable to replace those technologies with technologies that have the same features or functionality and that are of equal quality and performance standards on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Licensing replacement technologies and intellectual property may significantly increase our operating expenses or may require us to restrict our business activities in one or more respects. We may also be required to develop alternative non-infringing technology and intellectual property, which could require significant effort, time, and expense.

Our use of open source software and contributions to open source projects could impose limitations on our ability to provide our services, expose us to litigation, and cause us to impair some assets which could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

We utilize open source software, including Linux-based software, in providing a substantial portion of our services. The terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to offer our services. Additionally, the use and distribution of open source software can lead to greater risks than the use of third-party commercial software, as open source software does not come with warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. From time to time parties have asserted claims against companies that distribute or use open source software in their products and services, asserting that open source software infringes their intellectual property rights. We have been subject to suits, and could be subject to suits in the future, by parties claiming infringement of intellectual property rights with respect to what we believe to be open source software. In such event, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue using such software or offering certain of our services or to discontinue the use of such software or the sale of our affected services in the event we could not obtain such licenses, any of which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. In addition, if we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under some of the open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software.

We have also sponsored an open source project called OpenStack, which is designed to foster the emergence of cloud computing technology standards and cloud interoperability. Our participation in the project includes the release of our previously proprietary core cloud storage code, and we expect to release additional core cloud code in the future and contribute to the ongoing development of all of the OpenStack projects. In addition, we also participate in other open source projects and plan to continue to do so in the future. Our participation in and support for these projects could cause us to change our current software development and data center strategies. Our utilization of open source software and open data center design projects like the Facebook Open Compute project, which may replace our current capitalized design and development projects, could result in an impairment of those design and development assets.

In addition, our activities with these open source projects could subject us to additional risks of litigation including indirect infringement claims based on third-party contributors because of our sponsorship of this project.

We may not be successful in protecting and enforcing our intellectual property rights, which could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

We rely primarily on patent, copyright, trademark, service mark, and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our proprietary rights, all of which provide only limited protection. We rely on copyright laws to protect software and certain other elements of our proprietary technologies. We cannot assure you that any future copyright, trademark or service mark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered or unregistered copyrights, trademarks or service marks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our proprietary rights. We currently have onepatent issued and 23 patent applications filed in the U.S. Our patent applications may be challenged and/or ultimately rejected, and our issued patent may be contested, circumvented, found unenforceable or invalidated.

We endeavor to enter into agreements with our employees, contractors, and parties with whom we do business to limit access to and disclosure of our proprietary information. The steps we have taken, however, may not prevent unauthorized use or the reverse engineering of our technology. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies that are substantially equivalent, superior to, or otherwise competitive to the technologies we employ in our services or that infringe our intellectual property. We may be unable to prevent competitors from acquiring trademarks or service marks and other proprietary rights that are similar to, infringe upon, or diminish the value of our trademarks and service marks and our other proprietary rights. Enforcement of our intellectual property rights also depends on successful legal actions against infringers and parties who misappropriate our proprietary information and trade secrets, but these actions may not be successful, even when our rights have been infringed.

In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the U.S. Despite the measures taken by us, it may be possible for a third party to copy or otherwise obtain and use our technology and information without authorization. Policing unauthorized use of our proprietary technologies and other intellectual property and our services is difficult, and litigation could become necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights. Any litigation could be time consuming and expensive to prosecute or resolve, result in substantial diversion of management attention and resources, and harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our corporate culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain this culture, we could lose the innovation, creativity, and teamwork fostered by our culture, and our operating results may be harmed.

We believe that a critical contributor to our success has been our corporate culture, which we believe fosters innovation, creativity, and teamwork. If we implement more complex organizational management structures because of growth or other structural changes, we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture. This could negatively impact our future operating results. In addition, being a publicly traded company may create disparities in personal wealth among our employees, which may adversely impact our corporate culture and employee relations.

If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, our financial results could suffer.

The growth of our business and our service offerings can strain our operating and financial resources. Further, we intend to continue expanding our overall business, customer base, headcount, and operations. Creating a global organization and managing a geographically dispersed workforce requires substantial management effort and significant additional investment in our operating and financial system capabilities and controls. If our information systems are unable to support the demands placed on them by our growth, we may be forced to implement new systems, which would be disruptive to our business. We may be unable to manage our expenses effectively in the future due to the expenses associated with these expansions, which may negatively impact our gross margins or operating expenses. If we fail to improve our operational systems or to expand our customer service capabilities to keep pace with the growth of our business, we could experience customer dissatisfaction, cost inefficiencies, and lost revenue opportunities, which may materially and adversely affect our operating results.

We may not be able to continue to add new customers and increase sales to our existing customers, which could adversely affect our operating results.

Our growth is dependent on our ability to continue to attract new customers while retaining and expanding our service offerings to existing customers. Growth in the demand for our services may be inhibited, and we may be unable to sustain growth in our customer base for a number of reasons, such as:

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A reduction in the demand for our services due to economic factors;

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Our inability to market our services in a cost-effective manner to new customers;

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The inability of our customers to differentiate our services from those of our competitors or our inability to effectively communicate such distinctions;

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Our inability to successfully communicate the benefits of our services to businesses;

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The decision of businesses to host their Internet sites and web infrastructure internally or in colocation facilities as an alternative to the use of our hosting services;

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Our inability to penetrate international markets;

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Our inability to provide compelling services or effectively market them to existing customers;

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Our inability to strengthen awareness of our brand; and

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Reliability, quality or compatibility problems with our services.

A substantial amount of our past revenue growth was derived from purchases of service upgrades and additional services by existing customers. Our costs associated with increasing revenue from existing customers are generally lower than costs associated with generating revenue from new customers. Therefore, a reduction in the rate of revenue increase or a rate of revenue decrease from our existing customers, even if offset by an increase in revenue from new customers, could reduce our operating margins.

Any failure by us to continue attracting new customers or grow our revenue from existing customers for a prolonged period of time could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

If we overestimate or underestimate our data center capacity requirements, our operating margins and profitability could be adversely affected.

The costs of construction, leasing, and maintenance of our data centers constitute a significant portion of our capital and operating expenses. In order to manage growth and ensure adequate capacity for new and existing customers while minimizing unnecessary excess capacity costs, we continuously evaluate our short and long-term data center capacity requirements.

If we overestimate the demand for our services and therefore secure excess data center capacity, our operating margins could be materially reduced, which would materially impair our profitability. If we underestimate our data center capacity requirements, we may not be able to service the expanding needs of our existing customers and may be required to limit new customer acquisition, which may materially impair our revenue growth.

In the past, we have leased data center facilities and built or maintained the facilities ourselves. Due to the lead time in expanding existing data centers or building new data centers, if we build or expand data centers ourselves, we are required to estimate demand for our services as far as two years into the future. This requirement to make customer demand estimates so far in advance makes it difficult to accurately estimate our data center space needs. Building and maintaining data center facilities is also quite expensive. Early on in our operating history, we acquired most of our data center facilities relatively inexpensively as distressed assets of third parties. However, any such endeavor to build our own facilities would now likely require us to pay full market rates, which would make the penalty for inaccurate forecasting of our space needs even more detrimental.

More recently, we have leased data centers from data center operators who have built or maintained the facilities for us. If there are facilities available for lease that suit our needs, our lead time to make capacity decisions is decreased. However, there is still substantial lead time necessary in making sure that available space is adequate for our needs and maximizes our investment return. If we inaccurately forecast our space needs, we may be forced to enter into a lease that is not ideal for our needs and may potentially be required to pay more to secure the space if the current customer demand were to require immediate space expansion.

We currently intend to continue to lease from data center operators, but we could be forced to re-evaluate those plans depending on the availability and cost of data center facilities, the ability to impact and control certain design aspects of the data center and economic conditions affecting the data center operator's ability to add additional facilities.

We may not be able to renew the leases on our existing facilities on terms acceptable to us, if at all, which could adversely affect our operating results.

We do not own the facilities occupied by our current data centers but occupy them pursuant to commercial leasing arrangements. The initial terms of our main existing data center leases expire over a period ranging from 2012 to 2030, with each having at least one renewal period of no less than three years. Upon the expiration or termination of our data center facility leases, we may not be able to renew these leases on terms acceptable to us, if at all. If we fail to renew any data center lease and are required or choose to move the data center to a new facility, we would face significant challenges due to the technical complexity, risk, and high costs of relocating the equipment. For example, if we are required to migrate customer servers to a new facility, such migration could result in significant downtime for our affected customers. This could damage our reputation and lead us to lose current and potential customers, which would harm our operating results and financial condition.

Even if we are able to renew the leases on our existing data centers, we expect that rental rates, which will be determined based on then-prevailing market rates with respect to the renewal option periods and which will be determined by negotiation with the landlord after the renewal option periods, will be higher than rates we currently pay under our existing lease agreements. If we fail to increase revenue in our existing data centers by amounts sufficient to offset any increases in rental rates for these facilities, our operating results may be materially and adversely affected.

We rely on a number of third-party providers for data center space, equipment, maintenance and other services, and the loss of, or problems with, one or more of these providers may impede our growth or cause us to lose customers.

We rely on third-party providers to supply data center space, equipment and maintenance. For example, we lease data center space from third-party landlords, lease or purchase equipment from equipment providers, and source equipment maintenance through third parties. While we have entered into various agreements for these products and services, any failure to obtain additional capacity or space, equipment, or maintenance, if required, would impede the growth of our business and cause our financial results to suffer. For example, if a data center landlord does not adequately maintain its facilities or provide services for which it is responsible, we may not be able to deliver services to our customers according to our standards or at all. Further, the equipment that we purchase could be deficient in some way, thereby affecting our products and services. If, for any reason, these providers fail to provide the required services, fail to deliver their equipment, or suffer other failures, we may incur financial losses. Additionally, our customers may lose confidence in our company, and we may not be able to retain these customers.

We rely on third-party software that may be difficult to replace or which could cause errors or failures of our service that could lead to lost customers or harm to our reputation.

We rely on software licensed from third parties to offer our services. This software may not continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this software could result in delays in the provisioning of our services until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained, and integrated, which could harm our business. Any errors or defects in third-party software or inadequate or delayed support by the third party could result in errors or a failure of our service, which could harm our operating results by adversely affecting our revenue or operating costs.

We engage and rely on third-party consultants who may fail to provide effective guidance or solutions, which could result in increased costs and loss of business opportunity.

We engage third-party consultants who provide us with guidance and solutions relating to everything from overall corporate strategy to data center design to employee engagement. We engage these parties based on our perception of their expertise and ability to provide valuable insight or solutions in the areas that we believe need to be addressed in our business. However, these consultants may provide us with ineffective or even harmful guidance or solutions, which, if followed or implemented, could result in a loss of resources, operational failures or a loss of critical business opportunities.

Our data centers are susceptible to increased regional, national or international costs of power and to electrical power outages. Our customer contracts do not allow us to pass on any increased costs of energy to our customers, which could affect our operating margins. Further, power requirements at our data centers are increasing as a result of the increasing power demands of today’s servers. Increases in our power costs could impact our operating results and financial condition. Since we rely on third parties to provide our data centers with power sufficient to meet our needs, our data centers could have a limited or inadequate amount of electrical resources necessary to meet our customer requirements. We attempt to limit exposure to system downtime due to power outages by using backup generators and power supplies. However, these protections may not limit our exposure to power shortages or outages entirely. Any system downtime resulting from insufficient power resources or power outages could damage our reputation and lead us to lose current and potential customers, which would harm our operating results and financial condition.

Our success depends in part upon the capacity, reliability, and performance of our network infrastructure, including the capacity leased from our Internet bandwidth suppliers. We depend on these companies to provide uninterrupted and error-free service through their telecommunications networks. Some of these providers are also our competitors. We exercise little control over these providers, which increases our vulnerability to problems with the services they provide. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience interruptions or delays in network service. Any failure on our part or the part of our third-party suppliers to achieve or maintain high data transmission capacity, reliability or performance could significantly reduce customer demand for our services and damage our business.

As our customer base grows and their usage of telecommunications capacity increases, we will be required to make additional investments in our capacity to maintain adequate data transmission speeds, the availability of which may be limited or the cost of which may be on terms unacceptable to us. If adequate capacity is not available to us as our customers’ usage increases, our network may be unable to achieve or maintain sufficiently high data transmission capacity, reliability or performance. In addition, our business would suffer if our network suppliers increased the prices for their services and we were unable to pass along the increased costs to our customers.

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which could make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below investor or analyst expectations.

Our operating results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, including many of the risks described in this section, which are outside of our control. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. You should not rely on our operating results for any prior periods as an indication of our future operating performance. Fluctuations in our revenue can lead to even greater fluctuations in our operating results. Our budgeted expense levels depend in part on our expectations of long-term future revenue. Given relatively fixed operating costs related to our personnel and facilities, any substantial adjustment to our expenses to account for lower than expected levels of revenue will be difficult and time consuming. Consequently, if our revenue does not meet projected levels, our operating expenses would be high relative to our revenue, which would negatively affect our operating performance.

If our revenue or operating results do not meet or exceed the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the price of our common stock may decline.

We could be required to repay substantial amounts of money to certain state and local governments if we lose tax exemptions or grants previously awarded to us, which could adversely affect our operating results.

In August 2007, we entered into an agreement with the State of Texas (Texas Enterprise Fund Grant) under which we may receive up to $22.0 million in state enterprise fund grants on the condition that we meet certain employment levels in the State of Texas paying an average compensation of at least $56,000 per year (subject to increases). To the extent we fail to meet these requirements, we may be required to repay all or a portion of the grants plus interest. In September 2007, we received the initial installment of $5.0 million from the State of Texas, which was recorded as a non-current liability. On July 27, 2009, the Texas Enterprise Fund Grant agreement was amended to modify the job creation requirements. Under the amendment, the grant has been divided into four separate tranches. The first tranche, called “Basic Fund” in the amendment, is $8.5 million with a Job Target of 1,225 new jobs by December 2012 (in addition to the 1,436 jobs in place as of August 1, 2007, for a total of 2,661 jobs in Texas). We already have drawn $5.0 million of this grant and, since we have achieved the Job Target as of December 31, 2011, we intend to request the additional $3.5 million that is available to us. The remaining three tranches are at our option. We can draw an additional $13.5 million, based on the following amounts and milestones: $5.5 million if we create a total of 2,100 new jobs in Texas, another $5.25 million if we create a total of 3,000 new jobs in Texas, and $2.75 million more if we create a total of 4,000 new jobs in Texas. We are responsible for maintaining the jobs through January 2022. If we eliminate jobs for which we have drawn funds, we are subject to a clawback on the amounts we have drawn plus 3.4% interest on such amounts per year.

On August 3, 2007, we entered into a lease for approximately 67 acres of land and a 1.2 million square foot facility in Windcrest, Texas, which is in the San Antonio, Texas area, to house our corporate headquarters. In connection with this lease, we also entered into a Master Economic Incentives Agreement (“MEIA”) with the Cities of Windcrest and San Antonio, Texas; Bexar County; and certain other parties, pursuant to which we agreed to locate existing and future employees at the new facility location. The agreement requires that we meet certain employment levels each year, with an ultimate job requirement of 4,500 jobs by December 31, 2012, provided that if the job requirement in any grant agreement with the State of Texas is lower, then the job requirement under the MEIA is automatically adjusted downward. Consequently, because the Texas Enterprise Fund Grant agreement has been amended to reduce the state job requirement, we believe the job requirement under the MEIA has been reduced to 1,774. In addition, the MEIA requires that the median compensation of those employees be no less than $51,000 per year. In exchange for meeting these employment obligations, the parties agreed to enter into the lease structure, pursuant to which, as a lessee of the Windcrest Economic Development Corporation, we will not be subject to most of the property taxes associated with the property for a 14-year period. If we fail to meet these job creation requirements, we could lose a portion or all of the tax benefit being provided during the 14-year period by having to make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to the City of Windcrest. The amount of the PILOT payment would be calculated based on the amount of taxes that would have been owed for that period if the property were not exempt, and then such amount would be adjusted pursuant to certain factors, such as the percentage of employment achieved compared to the stated requirements.

We have debt obligations that include restrictive covenants limiting our flexibility to manage our business; failure to comply with these covenants could trigger an acceleration of our outstanding indebtedness and adversely affect our financial position and operating results.

As of December 31, 2011, there was no outstanding indebtedness under our credit facility other than an outstanding letter of credit in the amount of $0.4 million. Our credit facility requires compliance with a set of financial and non-financial covenants. Those covenants include financial leverage limitations and interest rate coverage requirements, as well as limitations on our ability to incur additional debt or liens, make restricted payments, sell assets, enter into affiliate transactions, merge or consolidate with other companies, make certain acquisitions and take other actions. If we default on our credit agreement due to non-compliance with such covenants or any other contractual requirement of the agreement, we may be required to repay all amounts owed under this credit facility.

We also have substantial equipment lease obligations, the principal balance of which totaled approximately $138.2 million as of December 31, 2011. The payment obligations under these equipment leases are secured by a significant portion of the hardware used in our data centers. If we are unable to generate sufficient cash flow from our operations or cash from other sources in order to meet the payment obligations under these equipment leases, we may lose the right to possess and operate the equipment used in our data centers, which would substantially impair our ability to provide our services, which could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity or results of operations.

If we are unable to generate sufficient cash to repay our debt obligations when they become due and payable, either when they mature or in the event of a default, we may not be able to obtain additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, if at all, which may negatively impact our ability to continue as a going concern.

We may require additional capital and may not be able to secure additional financing on favorable terms to meet our future capital needs, which could adversely affect our financial position and result in stockholder dilution.

In order to fund future growth, we will be dependent on significant capital expenditures. We may need to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings in the future in order to meet our operating and capital needs. We may not be able to secure additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, or at all, at the time when we need such funding. If we are unable to raise additional funds, we may not be able to pursue our growth strategy, and our business could suffer. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution in their percentage ownership of our company, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. In addition, any debt financing that we may obtain in the future could have restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions.

We are exposed to commodity and market price risks that have the potential to substantially influence our profitability and liquidity.

We are a large consumer of power. During 2011, we expensed approximately $22.4 million to utility companies to power our data centers. We anticipate an increase in our consumption of power in the future as our sales grow. Power costs vary by locality and are subject to substantial seasonal fluctuations and changes in energy prices. Our largest exposure to energy prices currently exists at our Grapevine, Texas facility in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where the energy market is deregulated. Power costs have historically tracked the general costs of energy, and continued increases in electricity costs may negatively impact our gross margins or operating expenses. We periodically evaluate the advisability of entering into fixed-price utilities contracts and have entered into certain fixed-price utilities contracts for some of our power consumption. If we choose not to enter into a fixed-price contract, we expose our cost structure to this commodity price risk. If we do choose to enter into a fixed-price contract, we lose the opportunity to reduce our power costs if the price for power falls below the fixed cost.

Our main credit facility is a revolving line of credit with a base rate determined by variable market rates, including the Prime Rate and the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). These market rates of interest are fluctuating and expose our interest expense to risk. At this point, our credit agreement does not obligate us to hedge any interest rate risk with any instruments, such as interest rate swaps or interest rate options, and we do not have any such instruments in place. As we borrow more, we may enter into swaps to continuously control our interest rate risk. As a result, we are exposed to interest rate risk on our borrowings. As an example of the impact of this interest rate risk, a 100 basis point increase in LIBOR would increase the interest expense on $10 million of borrowings that are not hedged by $0.1 million annually. As of December 31, 2011, we did not have exposure to interest rate risk as there was no amount outstanding on our revolving credit facility.

The majority of our customers are invoiced, and substantially all of our expenses are paid, by us or our subsidiaries in the functional currency of our company or our subsidiaries, respectively. However, some of our customers are currently invoiced in currencies other than the applicable functional currency. As a result, we may incur foreign currency losses based on changes in exchange rates between the date of the invoice and the date of collection. In addition, large changes in foreign exchange rates relative to our functional currencies could increase the costs of our services to non-U.S. customers relative to local competitors, thereby causing us to lose existing or potential customers to these local competitors. Thus, our results of operations and cash flows are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Further, as we grow our international operations, our exposure to foreign currency risk could become more significant. To date, we have not entered into any foreign currency hedging contracts, although we may do so in the future.

We may be liable for the material that content providers distribute over our network, and we may have to terminate customers that provide content that is determined to be illegal, which could adversely affect our operating results.

The law relating to the liability of private network operators for information carried on, stored on, or disseminated through their networks is still unsettled in many jurisdictions. We have been and expect to continue to be subject to legal claims relating to the content disseminated on our network, including claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, other similar legislation and common law. In addition, there are other potential customer activities, such as online gambling and pornography, where we, in our role as a hosting provider, may be held liable as an aider or abettor of our customers. If we need to take costly measures to reduce our exposure to these risks, terminate customer relationships and the associated revenue or defend ourselves against such claims, our financial results could be negatively affected.

Government regulation is continuously evolving and, depending on its evolution, may adversely affect our operating results.

We are subject to varying degrees of regulation in each of the jurisdictions in which we provide services. Local laws and regulations, and their interpretation and enforcement, differ significantly among those jurisdictions. These regulations and laws may cover taxation, privacy, data protection, pricing, content, copyrights, distribution, mobile communications, electronic device certification, electronic waste, electronic contracts and other communications, consumer protection, web services, the provision of online payment services, unencumbered Internet access to our services, the design and operation of websites, and the characteristics and quality of products and services. These laws can be costly to comply with, can be a significant diversion to management’s time and effort, and can subject us to claims or other remedies, as well as negative publicity. Many of these laws were adopted prior to the advent of the Internet and related technologies and, as a result, do not contemplate or address the unique issues that the Internet and related technologies produce. Some of the laws that do reference the Internet and related technologies have been and continue to be interpreted by the courts, but their applicability and scope remain largely uncertain.

In addition, future regulatory, judicial, and legislative changes may have a material adverse effect on our ability to deliver services within various jurisdictions. National regulatory frameworks have only recently been, or are still being, put in place in many countries. Accordingly, many countries are still in the early stages of providing for and adapting to a liberalized telecommunications market. As a result, in these markets we may encounter more protracted and difficult procedures to obtain any necessary licenses or negotiate interconnection agreements, which could negatively impact our ability to expand in these markets or increase our operating costs in these markets.

Privacy concerns relating to our technology could damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using our products and services.

Since our products and services are web-based, we store substantial amounts of data for our customers on our servers (including personal information). Any systems failure or compromise of our security that results in the release of our customers’ data could (i) subject us to substantial damage claims from our customers, (ii) expose us to costly regulatory remediation and (iii) harm our reputation and brand. We may also need to expend significant resources to protect against security breaches. The risk that these types of events could seriously harm our business is likely to increase as we expand our hosting footprint.

Regulatory authorities around the world are considering a number of legislative proposals concerning data protection. In addition, the interpretation and application of data protection laws in Europe and elsewhere are still uncertain and in flux. It is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our data practices. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, this could result in an order requiring that we change our data practices, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Complying with these various laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business.

Our ability to operate and expand our business is susceptible to risks associated with international sales and operations.

We anticipate that, for the foreseeable future, a significant portion of our revenue will continue to be derived from sources outside of the U.S. A key element of our growth strategy is to further expand our customer base internationally and successfully operate data centers in foreign markets. We have limited experience operating in foreign jurisdictions other than the U.K. and Hong Kong and expect to continue to grow our international operations. Managing a global organization is difficult, time consuming, and expensive. Our inexperience in operating our business globally increases the risk that international expansion efforts that we may undertake will not be successful. In addition, conducting international operations subjects us to new risks that we have not generally faced. These risks include:

▪

Localization of our services, including translation into foreign languages and adaptation for local practices and regulatory requirements;

▪

Lack of familiarity with and unexpected changes in foreign regulatory requirements;

Reduced or varied protection for intellectual property rights in some countries.

Operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources. The investment and additional resources required to establish operations and manage growth in other countries may not produce desired levels of revenue or profitability.

We rely on our Channel Partner Program members for a significant portion of our revenues, and we benefit from our association with them. The loss of these members could adversely affect our business.

Our Channel Partner Program drives a significant amount of revenue to our business through referral and reseller arrangements. Most of our member partners offer services that are complementary to our services; however, some of the participants may actually compete with us in one or more of our product or service offerings. These network partners may decide in the future to terminate their agreements with us and/or to market and sell a competitor’s or their own services rather than ours, which could cause our revenue to decline.

Also, we derive tangible and intangible benefits from our association with some of our network partners, particularly high profile partners that reach a large number of companies through the Internet. If a substantial number of these partners terminate their relationship with us, our business could be adversely affected.

Our acquisitions may divert our management’s attention, result in dilution to our stockholders and consume resources that are necessary to sustain our business.

We have made acquisitions, and, if appropriate opportunities present themselves, we may make additional acquisitions or investments or enter into joint ventures or strategic alliances with other companies. Risks commonly encountered in such transactions include:

▪

The difficulty of assimilating the operations and personnel of the combined companies;

▪

The risk that we may not be able to integrate the acquired services or technologies with our current services, products, and technologies;

The inability of management to maximize our financial and strategic position through the successful integration of the acquired businesses;

▪

Difficulty in maintaining controls, procedures, and policies;

▪

The impairment of relationships with employees, suppliers, and customers as a result of any integration;

▪

The loss of an acquired base of customers and accompanying revenue; and

▪

The assumption of leased facilities, other long-term commitments or liabilities that could have a material adverse impact on our profitability and cash flow.

As a result of these potential problems and risks, businesses that we may acquire or invest in may not produce the revenue, earnings, or business synergies that we anticipated. In addition, there can be no assurance that any potential transaction will be successfully identified and completed or that, if completed, the acquired business or investment will generate sufficient revenue to offset the associated costs or other potential harmful effects on our business.

Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and the global climate change may result in environmental taxes, charges, assessments or penalties.

The effects of human activity on the global climate change have attracted considerable public and scientific attention, as well as the attention of the United States government. Efforts are being made to reduce greenhouse emissions, particularly those from coal combustion by power plants, some of which we may rely upon for power. The added cost of any environmental taxes, charges, assessments or penalties levied on these power plants could be passed on to us, increasing the cost to run our data centers. Additionally, environmental taxes, charges, assessments or penalties could be levied directly on us in proportion to our carbon footprint. Any enactment of laws or passage of regulations regarding greenhouse gas emissions by the United States, or any domestic or foreign jurisdiction we perform business in, could adversely affect our operations and financial results.

The market price of our common stock has been highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to, among other things, the risk factors described in this periodic report and other factors beyond our control, such as stock market volatility and fluctuations in the valuation of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us.

Further, the stock markets have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have affected our stock price and the market prices of equity securities of many other companies. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political, and market conditions, such as recessions, interest rate changes or international currency fluctuations, may negatively affect the market price of our common stock. We may experience additional volatility as a result of the limited number of our shares available for trading in the market.

In the past, many companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

Our common stock has only been publicly traded since our initial public offering on August 7, 2008, and the price of our common stock has fluctuated substantially since then and may fluctuate substantially in the future.

Our common stock has only been publicly traded since our initial public offering on August 7, 2008. The trading price of our common stock has fluctuated significantly since then. For example, between December 31, 2010 and December 31, 2011, the closing trading price of our common stock was very volatile, ranging between $29.78 and $46.19 per share, including single-day increases of up to 12.4% and declines up to 12.4%. Our trading price could fluctuate substantially in the future due to the factors discussed in this Risk Factors section and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We do not intend to pay dividends on our common stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividend on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain any future earnings and do not expect to pay any dividends in the foreseeable future.

The issuance of additional stock in connection with acquisitions, our equity incentive and stock purchase plans, or otherwise will dilute all other stockholdings.

We have a large number of shares of common stock authorized but unissued and not reserved for issuance under our stock option plans or otherwise. We may issue all of these shares without any action or approval by our stockholders. We intend to continue to actively pursue strategic acquisitions. We may pay for such acquisitions, partly or in full, through the issuance of additional equity. In addition, our Amended and Restated 2007 Long-Term Incentive Plan and our Employee Stock Purchase Plan contain evergreen provisions, which annually increase the number of shares issuable under the applicable plan. Any issuance of shares in connection with our acquisitions, our Amended and Restated 2007 Long-Term Incentive Plan or otherwise would dilute the percentage ownership held by our then-existing stockholders.

Your ability to influence corporate matters may be limited because a small number of stockholders beneficially own a substantial amount of our common stock.

Our directors and executive officers and their affiliates beneficially own a significant portion of our outstanding common stock. As a result, these stockholders will be able to exercise significant influence over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or its assets. Although our directors and executive officers are not currently party to any agreements or understandings to act together on matters submitted for stockholder approval, this concentration of ownership could limit your ability to influence corporate matters and may have the effect of delaying or preventing a third party from acquiring control over us.

Anti-takeover provisions in our organizational documents and Delaware law may discourage or prevent a change of control, even if an acquisition would be beneficial to our stockholders, which could affect our stock price adversely and prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.

Our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our board of directors deemed undesirable by our board of directors that our stockholders might consider favorable. Some of these provisions:

•

Authorize the issuance of blank check preferred stock which can be created and issued by our board of directors without prior stockholder approval, with voting, liquidation, dividend, and other rights senior to those of our common stock;

•

Provide for a classified board of directors, with each director serving a staggered three-year term;

•

Prohibit our stockholders from filling board vacancies or increasing the size of our board, calling special stockholder meetings or taking action by written consent;

•

Provide for the removal of a director only with cause and by the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the shares then entitled to vote at an election of our directors; and

•

Require advance written notice of stockholder proposals and director nominations.

In addition, we are subject to the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may prohibit certain business combinations with stockholders owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock. These and other provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation, amended and restated bylaws and Delaware law could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our board of directors or initiate actions that are opposed by our then-current board of directors, including a merger, tender offer or proxy contest involving our company. Any delay or prevention of a change of control transaction or changes in our board of directors could cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

ITEM 1B - UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

ITEM 2 - PROPERTIES

Office Space

Our corporate headquarter facility is located in San Antonio, Texas and consists of a 1.2 million square foot facility located on approximately 67 acres of land. We have remodeled and are currently using approximately 574,000 square feet of office space and will continue to remodel the formerly vacant facility as needed to facilitate our future growth and office requirements. Besides our corporate headquarters, we have additional U.S. office locations in Texas, Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, California and Georgia and additional office space located in the U.K., the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Australia. As of December 31, 2011, we utilized approximately 913,000 square feet of our leased office space and used it for customer service, operations, sales, corporate and administrative functions.

Data Centers

As of December 31, 2011, we leased eight main data centers located in the U.S., the U.K., and in Hong Kong with approximately 262,000 available technical square feet, of which 233,000 were utilized. At December 31, 2011, we were utilizing 20.9 Megawatts of power at our data centers. The five data centers in the U.S. are located in Texas, Virginia and Illinois.

We are continuously looking for additional data center space to accommodate future growth or that would present an attractive business opportunity for us. However, we believe that our existing office space and data center facilities are adequate for our current needs and that suitable additional or alternative space will be available in the future to meet our anticipated needs.

We are party to various legal and administrative proceedings, which we consider routine and incidental to our business. In addition, on October 22, 2008, Benjamin E. Rodriguez D/B/A Management and Business Advisors vs. Rackspace Hosting, Inc. and Graham Weston was filed in the 37th District Court in Bexar County, Texas by a former consultant to the company, Benjamin E. Rodriguez. The suit alleges breach of an oral agreement to issue Mr. Rodriguez a 1% interest in our stock in the form of options or warrants for compensation for services he was engaged to perform for us. We believe that the plaintiff’s position is without merit and intend to vigorously defend this lawsuit. We do not expect the results of this claim or any other current proceeding to have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition.

Our common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "RAX" beginning on August 8, 2008. Prior to that time, there was no public market for our common stock.

The following table sets forth for the indicated periods the high and low closing prices for our common stock for the periods indicated, as reported by the New York Stock Exchange.

Fiscal Year 2011 Quarters:

High

Low

First Quarter

$

43.01

$

29.78

Second Quarter

46.19

38.24

Third Quarter

45.78

31.49

Fourth Quarter

45.16

31.49

Fiscal Year 2010 Quarters:

High

Low

First Quarter

$

23.09

$

17.11

Second Quarter

20.80

15.51

Third Quarter

26.11

16.46

Fourth Quarter

31.74

22.45

The last reported sale price for our common stock on the New York Stock Exchange was $31.41, $43.01 and $55.45 per share on December 31, 2010, December 31, 2011, and February 14, 2012, respectively.

Dividend Policy

We have never paid any cash dividends on our common stock. Our board of directors currently intends to retain any future earnings to support operations and to finance the growth and development of our business and does not intend to pay cash dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future. Any future determination related to our dividend policy will be made at the discretion of our board.

Stockholders

As of February 14, 2012, there were 226 registered stockholders of record of our common stock. Because many of our shares of common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of stockholders represented by these stockholders of record.

The graph set forth below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our common stock between August 7, 2008 (the date of our initial public offering, or IPO) and December 31, 2011, with the cumulative total return of (i) the Russell 2000 Index, (ii) the Russell 1000 Index, and (iii) the Nasdaq Internet Total Return Index over the same period. This graph assumes the investment of $100 on August 7, 2008 in our common stock at our IPO offering price of $12.50 per share, the Russell 2000 Index, the Russell 1000 Index and the Nasdaq Internet Total Return Index, and assumes the reinvestment of dividends, if any. The Russell 2000 Index measures the performance of the small-cap segment of U.S. equities. As our revenue and total market capitalization have both increased over the last year, we will no longer use the Russell 2000 Index and will instead use the Russell 1000 Index, which measures the performance of the large-cap segment of U.S. equities. We are currently included in the Russell 1000 Index. The Nasdaq Internet Total Return Index consists of U.S. listed companies engaged in Internet-related businesses.

The comparisons shown in the graph below are based upon historical data. We caution that the stock price performance shown in the graph below is not necessarily indicative of, nor is it intended to forecast, the potential future performance of our common stock.

The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the notes to those statements and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” included elsewhere in this document. The selected consolidated financial data in this section are not intended to replace the financial statements and are qualified in their entirety by the consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto, included elsewhere in this document.

The statements of income data for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and the balance sheet data as of December 31, 2010 and 2011 have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements, which have been audited by KPMG LLP, independent registered public accounting firm, and included elsewhere in this document. The statements of income data for the years ended December 31, 2007 and 2008 and the balance sheet data as of December 31, 2007, 2008 and 2009 have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements, which have been audited by KPMG LLP, independent registered public accounting firm, but are not included in this document. Historical results are not necessarily indicative of future results. See Note 2 to the financial statements for an explanation of the method used to determine the number of shares used in computing basic and diluted net income per common share.

The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes contained elsewhere in this document.

Overview of our Business

We are the service leader in cloud computing. Our growth is the result of our commitment to serving our customers, known as Fanatical Support, and our exclusive focus on cloud computing. We have been successful in attracting and retaining thousands of customers and in growing our business. We are a pioneer in an emerging category, Hybrid Hosting, which combines the benefits of hosted computing on dedicated hardware and on pools of shared resources. We are committed to maintaining our service-centric focus, and we will follow our vision to be considered one of the world’s great service companies.

We sell our services to small and medium-sized businesses as well as large enterprises. During 2011, 25% of our net revenue was generated by our operations outside of the U.S., mainly from the U.K. Additionally, we operate a Hong Kong data center and sales office. Our growth strategy includes, among other strategies, targeting international customers as we plan to expand our activities in continental Europe and Asia. During 2011, no individual customer accounted for more than 2% of our net revenue.

How We Earn Revenue and Measure Growth

Our subscription-based business model generates approximately 98% of our revenue on a recurring basis. Our customers pay us a recurring fee based on the size and complexity of the IT systems we manage and the level of service intensity we provide, pursuant to service agreements that typically provide for monthly payments. Our Public Cloud service offers pay-as-you go services that are earned and recognized as recurring revenue as the services are provided. Revenue is reduced by credits issued to customers, primarily for service interruptions, and also includes revenue related to customers who have canceled their service. Net revenue for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2010 and 2011 was $629.0 million, $780.6 million and $1,025.1 million, respectively, representing year-over-year increases of 24.1% in 2010 and 31.3% in 2011.

Our revenue growth is primarily due to the increased volume of services provided, both because of an increasing number of new customers and incremental services rendered to existing customers, as well as a broader suite of cloud computing services acquired through acquisitions and research and development activities. “Installed base growth” is a metric we use to measure the growth of revenue derived only from our existing customer base.

Our net revenue is denominated in U.S. dollars as well as other foreign currencies, including the pound sterling, the euro, and the Hong Kong dollar. Changes in related currency exchange rates may affect our net revenue. The increase in net revenue due to foreign currency fluctuations was approximately $8.6 million, or 0.8%, in 2011.

Our operating expense categories include cost of revenue, sales and marketing, general and administrative, and depreciation and amortization.

Employee-related costs have historically been the primary driver of our operating expenses, and we expect this to continue. Employee-related costs include items such as wages, commissions, non-equity incentive compensation, vacation, benefits, and share-based compensation. Employee non-equity incentive compensation through our current non-equity incentive plan, in effect since January 1, 2009, is dependent upon the financial results of the company in relation to a pre-set target level that is set at the beginning of each quarter. Thus, favorable financial performance in comparison to the pre-set target level is partially offset by increased non-equity incentive compensation expense. If company achievement of the pre-set target results in a 10.0% increase in the non-equity incentive compensation percentage payout in a quarter, this would increase total non-equity incentive compensation by approximately $0.6 million on an after-tax basis and increase net income by $0.6 million in that quarter. Company achievement resulting in a 10.0% decrease in the non-equity incentive compensation percentage payout in a quarter would decrease total non-equity incentive compensation by approximately $0.6 million on an after-tax basis and decrease net income by $0.6 million in that quarter. Additionally, the Compensation Committee has the discretion to increase or decrease a payout under the plan at any time in the event that it determines that circumstances warrant adjustment or to pay bonuses outside of the plan.

We had 3,262 and 4,040 employees as of December 31, 2010 and 2011, respectively. The year-over-year increase was primarily attributable to increases in our customer and data center support teams, as well as increases in general and administrative positions. To maintain our service focus, our support teams have continued to grow with the growth of our business. Our headcount is expected to increase in 2012 as we continue to grow our business.

Cost of revenue primarily consists of employee-related costs of our customer support teams and data center employees, as well as the costs to operate our data centers. The majority of our data center costs vary with the volume of services sold and include: power, bandwidth, and rent; costs associated with licenses; and costs related to maintenance and the replacement of IT equipment components. Our contracts with network operators for bandwidth capacity generally commit us to pay a monthly fee based on usage. Our data centers rely on local and regional utility companies as their primary source of power. We have fixed-price power arrangements with the electricity providers of our Grapevine, Texas and Slough, U.K. data centers that expire in September 2013. We enter into contracts with software providers that allow us to provide licenses to our customers. Our arrangements with these software vendors are typically one to three years in length and we generally pay a fixed fee per license.

Sales and marketing activities are directed toward both the acquisition of new customers and increasing our business with existing customers. We pay commissions to our sales representatives generally upon execution of a service agreement. Sales and marketing expense also includes compensation to our channel partners. Marketing expenditures are intended to communicate the advantages of our services and to generate customer demand. The majority of our marketing expenditures relate to lead generation through pay-per-click placements on major Internet search engines.

General and administrative activities are comprised of employee-related costs, professional fees, general corporate costs and overhead. While we continue to invest in our administrative infrastructure and personnel to support our growth, our focus has been and continues to be on scaling these administrative costs.

Depreciation and amortization expense includes amortization of leasehold improvements associated with our data centers and corporate facilities, as well as depreciation of our data center infrastructure and equipment. Amortization expense is also comprised of the amortization of our customer-based intangible assets related to acquisitions, internally developed technology, and software licenses purchased from third-party vendors.

Our operating expenses are denominated in U.S. dollars as well as other foreign currencies, including the pound sterling, the euro, and Hong Kong dollar. Changes in related currency exchange rates may affect our operating results. The increase in operating expenses, due to foreign currency fluctuations, was approximately $6.4 million, or less than 1%, in 2011.

Data center infrastructure - Includes generators, uninterruptible power supplies or UPS, power distribution units, mechanical and electrical plants, chillers, raised floor and other building improvements.

Corporate office build-outs - Includes demolition, raised floor, furniture and general building improvements.

Internally developed software and other - Includes salaries and payroll-related costs of employees and consultants who devote time to the development of certain internal-use software projects, and other projects that meet the criteria for capitalization.

In 2011, we expended cash or entered into lease arrangements for the purchase of customer gear of $196.1 million and incurred data center infrastructure costs of $49.9 million, corporate office build-out costs of $35.8 million and $63.1 million of costs related to internally developed software and other capitalized projects.

Our data center infrastructure is built to accommodate future revenue growth. While we try to minimize the amount of excess capacity, we consider appropriate lead times for these build-outs, which requires us to build capacity ahead of actual revenue growth. We also strive to align our investment in data center infrastructure with our revenue growth to keep utilization rates high. We measure our utilization rate as the power being consumed by all electrical equipment relative to the total available capacity in our data centers excluding portions of the data center that have not been placed on line. We pursue a modular build-out strategy within our data centers that expands the operational footprint when needed. From time to time, we will be required to make significant investments in new data centers or enter into long-term facility leases to support expected growth beyond our ability to build out additional modules in existing facilities.

While many factors may influence our margins, in periods when we make large investments, margins may decrease. Such investments may be made in connection with data center and office expansion, as well as significant product and market development initiatives.

During 2011, we continued to add to our existing data center footprint both in the U.S. and internationally to support our growth. We added more than 100 thousand technical square feet of data center space. In February and August 2011, we modified our operating lease agreement with a subsidiary of DuPont Fabros Technology to lease additional space at our Chicago area data center. In December 2011, we entered into an operating lease agreement with Digital Realty Trust to lease approximately 58,200 technical square feet of data center space in Richardson, Texas. This current strategy of entering into operating lease agreements for data center space reduces the capital investments required to increase our data center square footage.

We have achieved net income profitability since the first quarter of 2004 through focused management of capital and profitability. We use the Economic Value Added model (EVA), which was developed by Stern Stewart & Co., as a tool to help ensure our growth and capital investments create stockholder value. Virtually all capital expenditures are evaluated against this metric using a standard cost of capital. EVA is calculated for our product offerings to evaluate our profitability.

We are also very careful with our facility and data center expansion practices. Currently, we sell to businesses in more than 120 countries. Unlike a colocation provider, we do not need to be located near our customers, allowing us to build or lease centralized, cost-optimized facilities with teams of highly-trained staff. We strive to locate our regional facilities and data centers in lower-cost locations, which reduces rent, power and labor costs. We also focus on either leasing or building sections of data centers in increments so that capital expenditures are more closely matched to revenue growth.

We have made significant investments in cloud computing. Over the last several years, we have made acquisitions that have expanded our product set into new areas of cloud computing, including private cloud, OpenStack and Rackspace Cloud Builders. We will continue to identify and pursue strategic investments that have the potential to generate savings, enhance our competitive advantage, and increase our capabilities to serve customers.

We have achieved a critical mass that generates long-term cost advantages. Like any service that moves from distributed to centralized production, scale is a factor in ensuring costs are low enough to drive mass adoption. We are able to generate significant cost advantages based on our large installed customer base and growth profile. We purchase large quantities of computing and data center assets, which allows us to negotiate higher volume pricing savings.

Key Metrics

We carefully track several financial and operational metrics to monitor and manage our growth, financial performance, and capacity. Our key metrics are structured around growth, profitability, capital efficiency, infrastructure capacity, and utilization. The following data should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements, the notes to the financial statements and other financial information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

(1) See discussion and reconciliation of our Non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures.

(2) Due to rounding, totals may not equal the sum of the line items in the table above.

(3) Customers are counted on an account basis, and therefore a customer with more than one account with us is included as more than one customer. Furthermore, amounts include SaaS customers for Jungle Disk using a Rackspace storage solution. Jungle Disk customers using a third-party storage solution are excluded.

We have historically defined technical square feet of data center space as space that can be utilized to support IT equipment. With respect to square footage and utilization, for data centers that are not yet fully utilized, we include square footage and power capacity based on the agreed upon schedule in the lease agreement. For example, if the agreement has ten phases and we are in phase five, we include 50% of the total square footage and power capacity called for in the lease agreement.

As a result of our strategy to continue leasing data centers, beginning in the first quarter of 2012, we will begin disclosing our total Megawatts under contract, Megawatts available for use and Megawatts utilized as of period-end. We will no longer provide technical square footage as we believe that power is a better metric for evaluating our capacity. The table below shows how the new disclosure would have appeared in the Key Metrics table.

Year Ended December 31,

(Dollar amounts in thousands)

2009

2010

2011

Megawatts under contract at period end

28.4

32.7

48.1

Megawatts available for use at period end

20.8

23.2

30.7

Megawatts utilized at period end

13.3

16.7

20.9

Net revenue per average Megawatt of power utilized

$

53,304

$

52,037

$

54,065

Executive Overview

To aid in understanding our operating results for the periods covered by this report, we have provided an executive overview and a summary of the significant events that affected the most recent fiscal year. These sections should be read in conjunction with the more detailed discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in Item 7, our “Risk Factors” section included in Item 1A of Part I, and our audited consolidated financial statements and notes included in Item 8 of Part II of this report.

In 2011 we focused on accelerating the growth of our business while maintaining our profits and returns and focusing on the minimal use of cash to achieve our growth.

Growth of Our Business. Our business grew in 2011 with net revenue growth year over year of $244.5 million, or 31.3%, to $1,025.1 million compared to $780.6 million in 2010. Our increase in net revenue was primarily due to increased volume of services provided, due to both an increasing number of new customers and incremental services rendered to existing customers. Year-over-year revenue increases were 22.9% for our Dedicated Cloud hosting service and 87.9% for our Public Cloud hosting service. Also contributing to the revenue increase was the positive impact of a weaker U.S. dollar relative to the pound sterling. Net revenue in 2011 would have been approximately $8.6 millionlower had the U.S. dollar to the pound sterling exchange rate remained constant from the prior year.

Our 2011 performance was the result of a combination of continued market demand for our services as well as our focused execution on our growth strategy. As of December 31, 2011, we served over 172,000 customers running on over 79,000 servers within our data centers in the U.S., the U.K., and Hong Kong, which represented incremental increases in each category as compared to 2010. During 2011, our monthly average churn rate was 0.9%, compared to 1.0% in 2010. Overall, our installed base continued to provide a portion of our growth in 2011, growing at a monthly average rate of 1.0% in 2011, compared to 0.5% in 2010 and 0.2% in 2009, respectively. In the fourth quarter of 2011, our churn rate was 0.8% and installed base growth was 1.2%. The increase in net upgrades is primarily due to an increasing number of larger customers within our customer base, as well as increasing spend by these customers. These larger customers generally have higher net upgrades.

Our revenue growth has moved us into a new competitive landscape where our direct competitors are much larger and stronger financially. We will continue to compete more directly with Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Google as cloud computing services become increasingly more virtualized. Accordingly, we have been making increased infrastructure investments to complement and leverage Fanatical Support, our principal differentiation from our competitors across our multiple service offerings. Our cloud computing services provide customers with a mission-critical service and world class support, and we believe this provides us with substantial growth opportunities. We believe that by offering a higher service level agreement and extending our support to new technology platforms, our business becomes more capital efficient and our competitive advantage widens as our service capability increases.

Scaling Profits and Returns. While accelerating our revenue growth rate in 2011, profit margins increased as well, particularly during the second half of the year.

Income from operations increased$43.9 million, or 55.2%, to $123.5 million in 2011, compared to $79.6 million in 2010. Operating income margin was 12.0% in 2011 as compared to 10.2% in 2010. Adjusted EBITDA increased$85.6 million, or 32.7%, to $347.7 million in 2011, compared to $262.1 million in 2010. In addition, Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of revenue was 33.9% in 2011 compared to 33.6% in 2010. See the following section on non-GAAP financial measures for a discussion of Adjusted EBITDA. Net income was $76.4 million or $0.55 per share on a diluted basis in 2011, compared to net income of $46.4 million, or $0.35 per share on a diluted basis in 2010. Net income margin was 7.5% in 2011 as compared to 5.9% in 2010.

Use of Cash. For the year ended December 31, 2011, we had negative adjusted free cash flow of $7.4 million. See below for our discussion of non-GAAP financial measures.

During 2011, we were able to maintain a consistent level of cash and cash equivalents while growing our business by maintaining our disciplined use of capital. Our capital expenditures for 2011 were $344.9 million, of which $75.1 million was vendor-financed, while our cash provided by operating activities was $343.0 million. In 2011, we deployed an additional 13,790 servers, bringing our total servers to 79,805, an increase of 20.9%. As of December 31, 2011, we had $119.1 million in cash deposits and $40.7 million in money market funds.

Company Highlights and Developments

Product and Service Offerings

We continue to invest in our Public Cloud service and believe it is a critical part of our future success. Public cloud continues to emerge as a new technology with high adoption rates and investment, which is reflected in its high revenue growth rate. The primary benefit of Public Cloud is the value proposition that it provides for businesses. It enables them to match costs directly to revenue and to scale up and down on a real-time basis as necessary. We do not believe that Public Cloud will replace traditional Dedicated Cloud hosting offerings. We believe the two complement one another, allowing customers to choose from a portfolio of offerings to meet their business needs.

A focus in our growth strategy is to build our product portfolio to include higher service levels and additional capabilities. We are investing heavily in this strategy and creating new technologies to help businesses leverage the benefits of Public Cloud hosting. Hosted virtual desktop, our managed Cloud service, the U.K. Cloud, and Cloud Load Balancers are a few of the recent examples of new capabilities we have developed that are available in the market today that make us more competitive, drive revenue growth, and improve returns.

Our product road-map includes a variety of new capabilities and features including Cloud Block Storage, enhancements to RackConnect, and building a support business around the OpenStack cloud computing platform. Based on our experience working with customers running OpenStack, we are ready to move into the next phase of our OpenStack strategy with the introduction of a new service we call Rackspace Cloud: Private Edition. This new offering will enable Rackspace to extend Fanatical Support beyond the bounds of our data centers by remotely supporting and managing OpenStack environments that run in almost any data center. While this initiative is still in its early stages of development, Rackspace Cloud: Private Edition is an opportunity to drive incremental demand.

The following tables set forth our results of operations for the specified periods and as a percentage of our revenue for those same periods. The period-to-period comparison of financial results is not necessarily indicative of future results.

Consolidated Statements of Income:

Year Ended December 31,

(In thousands)

2009

2010

2011

Net revenue

$

628,987

$

780,555

$

1,025,064

Costs and expenses:

Cost of revenue

200,943

249,840

309,095

Sales and marketing

79,458

96,207

126,505

General and administrative

168,116

199,011

270,581

Depreciation and amortization

125,229

155,895

195,412

Total costs and expenses

573,746

700,953

901,593

Income from operations

55,241

79,602

123,471

Other income (expense):

Interest expense

(8,950

)

(7,984

)

(5,848

)

Interest and other income (expense)

255

(207

)

(1,194

)

Total other income (expense)

(8,695

)

(8,191

)

(7,042

)

Income before income taxes

46,546

71,411

116,429

Income taxes

16,328

25,053

40,018

Net income

$

30,218

$

46,358

$

76,411

Consolidated Statements of Income, as a Percentage of Net Revenue:

Year Ended December 31,

(Percent of net revenue)

2009

2010

2011

Net revenue

100.0

%

100.0

%

100.0

%

Costs and expenses:

Cost of revenue

31.9

%

32.0

%

30.2

%

Sales and marketing

12.6

%

12.3

%

12.3

%

General and administrative

26.7

%

25.5

%

26.4

%

Depreciation and amortization

19.9

%

20.0

%

19.1

%

Total costs and expenses

91.2

%

89.8

%

88.0

%

Income from operations

8.8

%

10.2

%

12.0

%

Other income (expense):

Interest expense

-1.4

%

-1.0

%

-0.6

%

Interest and other income (expense)

0.0

%

0.0

%

-0.1

%

Total other income (expense)

-1.4

%

-1.0

%

-0.7

%

Income before income taxes

7.4

%

9.1

%

11.4

%

Income taxes

2.6

%

3.2

%

3.9

%

Net income

4.8

%

5.9

%

7.5

%

Due to rounding, totals may not equal the sum of the line items in the table above.

Our net revenue was $780.6 million during 2010 and $1,025.1 million during 2011, an increase of $244.5 million, or 31.3%. The increase in net revenue was primarily due to increased volume of services provided, due to both an increasing number of new customers and incremental services rendered to existing customers. Also contributing to the the revenue increase was the positive impact of a weaker U.S. dollar relative to the pound sterling in 2011 compared to 2010. Net revenue for 2011 would have been approximately $8.6 millionlower had the U.S. dollar to the pound sterling exchange rate remained constant from the prior year, with a minimal impact to our margins as the majority of these customers are invoiced, and substantially all of our expenses associated with these customers are paid, by us or our subsidiaries in the functional currency of our company or our subsidiaries, respectively.

Cost of Revenue

Our cost of revenue was $249.8 million during 2010 and $309.1 million during 2011, an increase of $59.3 million, or 23.7%. Of this increase, $31.1 million was attributable to an increase in employee-related expenses due to increases in salaries and benefits of $27.1 million and non-equity incentive compensation of $4.4 million, partially offset by a $0.4 million decrease in share-based compensation expense. These increases were the result of the hiring of data center and support personnel to support our growth and higher percentage attainment against the preset target for non-equity incentive compensation. The cost increase was further attributable to an increase in data center costs of $13.5 million related to bandwidth, power and rent, and an increase in license costs of $11.9 million. The remaining increase was due to small variances in other cost of revenue expenses.

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Our sales and marketing expenses were $96.2 million during 2010 and $126.5 million during 2011, an increase of $30.3 million, or 31.5%. Of this increase, $17.5 million was attributable to an increase in employee-related expenses due to increases in salaries and benefits of $16.1 million and commissions of $3.3 million, partially offset by a $1.9 million decrease in share-based compensation expense. Total compensation increased as a result of the hiring of additional sales and marketing personnel and the impact of commissions associated with increased sales. Additionally, advertising and Internet-related marketing expenditures increased $11.5 million. The remaining increase was due to small variances in other sales and marketing expenses.

General and Administrative Expenses

Our general and administrative expenses were $199.0 million during 2010 and $270.6 million during 2011, an increase of $71.6 million, or 36.0%. Of this increase, $48.8 million was attributable to employee-related expenses due to increases in salaries and benefits of $36.9 million, non-equity incentive compensation of $7.4 million, and share-based compensation expense of $4.5 million. These increases are primarily due to additional headcount, higher percentage attainment against the preset target for non-equity incentive compensation and equity awards granted in 2011. Professional fees and legal expenses increased $11.4 million primarily as a result of increased consulting expenses related to accounting and tax services, corporate strategy and internal system maintenance and improvements and various infrastructure projects that were not capitalized. Travel and other employee related expenses such as recruiting fees and relocation increased $4.7 million primarily due to a general increase in hiring during 2011. Additionally, office expenses including rent and maintenance increased $2.0 million, and merchant credit card fees and bad debt increased $2.7 million and $0.6 million, respectively, due to a higher volume of sales. The remaining variance was due to small changes in other general and administrative expenses.

Depreciation and Amortization Expense

Our depreciation and amortization expense was $155.9 million during 2010 and $195.4 million during 2011, an increase of $39.5 million, or 25.3%. This increase in depreciation and amortization expense was a direct result of an increase in property and equipment related to depreciable assets to support the growth of our business, including increases in data center equipment and leasehold improvements due to data center build-outs and internally developed and purchased software.

Our interest expense was $8.0 million during 2010 and $5.8 million during 2011, a decrease of $2.2 million, or 27.5%. This decrease was primarily due to the decreased level of indebtedness. Interest expense was partially offset by capitalized interest of $0.6 million during 2010. There was no interest capitalized in 2011.

Interest and other income (expense) was $(0.2) million during 2010 and $(1.2) million during 2011. 2010 included foreign currency losses of $0.7 million compared to foreign currency losses of $0.3 million in 2011 and accretion expense of acquisition-related liabilities of $1.3 million.

Income Taxes

Our effective tax rate was 35.1% and 34.4% in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The differences between our effective tax rate and the U.S. federal statutory rate of 35% principally result from our geographical distribution of taxable income, research and development credits, contingency reserves for uncertain tax positions and permanent differences between the book and tax treatment of certain items. Our foreign earnings are generally taxed at lower rates than in the United States.

For a full reconciliation of our effective tax rate to the U.S. federal statutory rate of 35% and further explanation of our provision for taxes, see Item 8 of Part II, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data – Note 14 – Taxes.”

Years ended December 31, 2009 and 2010

Net Revenue

Our net revenue was $629.0 million during 2009 and $780.6 million during 2010, an increase of $151.6 million, or 24.1%. The increase in net revenue was primarily due to increased volume of services provided, due to both an increasing number of new customers and incremental services rendered to existing customers. Partially offsetting the revenue increase was the negative impact of a stronger U.S. dollar relative to the pound sterling in 2010 compared to 2009. Net revenue for 2010 would have been approximately $2.7 million higher had the U.S. dollar to the pound sterling exchange rate remained constant from the prior year, with a minimal impact to our margins as the majority of these customers are invoiced, and substantially all of our expenses associated with these customers are paid, by us or our subsidiaries in the functional currency of our company or our subsidiaries, respectively. Net revenue in 2009 was negatively impacted by two service interruptions, which resulted in a total of $3.7 million in service credits. There were no significant service interruptions in 2010.

Cost of Revenue

Our cost of revenue was $200.9 million during 2009 and $249.8 million during 2010, an increase of $48.9 million, or 24.3%. Of this increase, $24.0 million was attributable to an increase in employee-related expenses due to increases in salaries and benefits of $20.9 million, share-based compensation expense of $1.8 million and non-equity incentive compensation of $1.3 million. These increases were the result of the hiring of data center and support personnel to support our growth, equity awards granted in 2010 and higher percentage attainment against the preset target for non-equity incentive compensation. The cost increase was further attributable to an increase in data center costs of $6.2 million related to bandwidth, power and rent, an increase in license costs of approximately $8.3 million and an increase in consulting fees related to data center assessments and improvements of $10.0 million. Impacting the $8.3 million increase in license costs was a $2.1 million reduction in 2009 related to the reversal of a previously recorded obligation relating to an unresolved contractual issue with a vendor. During the fourth quarter of 2009, we concluded that the obligation was no longer probable, and accordingly, we reversed the liability, which reduced cost of revenue. The remaining increase was due to small increase in other cost of revenue expenses.

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Our sales and marketing expenses were $79.5 million during 2009 and $96.2 million during 2010, an increase of $16.7 million, or 21.0%. Of this increase, $11.4 million was attributable to an increase in employee-related expenses due to increases in salaries and benefits of $5.3 million, commissions of $4.1 million, share-based compensation expense of $1.4 million and non-equity incentive compensation of $0.6 million. Total compensation increased as a result of the hiring of additional sales and marketing personnel and the impact of commissions associated with increased sales. Additionally, advertising and Internet-related marketing expenditures increased $3.3 million, and travel and other employee-related expenses increased $2.0 million.

Our general and administrative expenses were $168.1 million during 2009 and $199.0 million during 2010, an increase of $30.9 million, or 18.4%. Of this increase, $19.0 million was attributable to employee-related expenses due to increases in salaries and benefits of $13.4 million, non-equity incentive compensation of $2.3 million, and share-based compensation expense of $3.3 million. These increases are primarily due to additional headcount, higher percentage attainment against the preset target for non-equity incentive compensation and equity awards granted in 2010. Professional fees increased $3.6 million primarily as a result of increased consulting expenses related to accounting and tax services, corporate strategy and internal system maintenance and improvements, and incremental software and maintenance costs of $1.6 million. Travel and other employee-related expenses such as recruiting fees and relocation increased $5.4 million primarily due to the addition of several executive level positions and a general increase in hiring during 2010. Additionally, property tax increased $2.0 million due to the addition of data center facilities. We also experienced an increase in merchant credit card fees of $1.8 million due to higher volume of sales in 2010. The overall increase was partially offset by a decrease in bad debt expense of $2.0 million due to a positive change in customer payment patterns and increased cash collections. The remaining variance was due to small changes in other general and administrative expenses.

Depreciation and Amortization Expense

Our depreciation and amortization expense was $125.2 million during 2009 and $155.9 million during 2010, an increase of $30.7 million, or 24.5%. This increase in depreciation and amortization expense was a direct result of an increase in property and equipment related to depreciable assets, including increases in data center equipment and leasehold improvements due to data center build outs and internally developed and purchased software, as well as intangible assets acquired through acquisitions.

Income Taxes

Our effective tax rate remained constant with a rate of 35.1% for 2009 and 2010. The differences between our effective tax rate and the U.S. federal statutory rate of 35% principally result from our geographical distribution of taxable income, research and development credits, contingency reserves for uncertain tax positions and permanent differences between the book and tax treatment of certain items. Our foreign earnings are generally taxed at lower rates than in the United States.

Quarterly Key Metrics and Results of Operations

The following tables set forth our unaudited quarterly key metrics and condensed consolidated statement of operations data in dollars and as a percentage of revenue for each of our most recent five quarters as of the period ended December 31, 2011. The quarterly data presented below has been prepared on a basis consistent with the audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this document and, in the opinion of management, reflects all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for a fair presentation of this information. You should read this information together with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this document. Our quarterly results of operations may fluctuate in the future due to a variety of factors. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Our results for these quarterly periods are not necessarily indicative of the results of operations for a full year or any period.

(1) See discussion and reconciliation of our Non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures.

(2) Due to rounding, totals may not equal the sum of the line items in the table above.

(3) Customers are counted on an account basis, and therefore a customer with more than one account with us is included as more than one customer. Furthermore, amounts include SaaS customers for Jungle Disk using a Rackspace storage solution. Jungle Disk customers using a third-party storage solution are excluded.

(4) During the three months ended March 31, 2011, share-based compensation expense within Sales and Marketing was positively impacted by the reversal of previously recorded expense related to terminated employees. The offset of the reversal was a true-up of the forfeiture rate across Cost of Revenue and General and Administrative expenses for options that fully vested within the quarter, negatively impacting these categories.

As noted above in the annual Key Metrics table, beginning in the first quarter of 2012, we will begin disclosing our total Megawatts under contract, Megawatts available for use and Megawatts utilized as of period-end. We will no longer provide technical square footage as we believe that power is a better metric for evaluating our capacity. The table below shows how the new disclosure would have appeared in the quarterly Key Metrics table.